Hey. I'm alive. My new job just doesn't let me write while working. Also, I'm woefully behind on this project, and I've only just finished January.

Originally posted to tumblr 2016-04-24.

/ Day 29 (2016.01.29)

/ noun
/ 1. the point on the celestial sphere vertically above a given position or observer.
/ Compare nadir.
/ 2. a highest point or state; culmination.

Dean had never believed in angels or god or anything of the like. He believed in what he could see, what he could fight. Some would argue that what he saw no one else did, that things like ghosts and demons didn't exist. But they did, and they were always there to beat him down.

God never showed his face. No angel ever showed theirs. If either of them existed, then someone would have seen them before. They wouldn't be myth, they wouldn't leave their beloved humans to scramble and suffer and die. But they did.

And then he met one. An actual fucking angel. The one who had pulled him from hell, who left a handprint on his arm. But for all the good said about angels, they were just dicks with powers he couldn't comprehend, couldn't really fight. Hell, Cas' first appearance scared the shit out of him.

As Cas became an ally, and then a friend, Dean never really stopped being scared of him, though it changed from what Cas could do to them to what Cas could see in him. The first time he realized Cas could see his soul, could see the filth laid on it, he balked and ran as far as he could.

Cas never called him on it, but after that, Dean started getting complimented on damn near everything he did, which was more than a bit alarming. And one of the most embarrassing things that had ever been shunted onto him. Still didn't stop him from falling in love with an angel. Probably even helped a bit.

Dean hadn't been scared of Cas in years. Fori him, sure. But of him? No. He couldn't be. Not after Cas had bound his grace to Dean's soul.

Then Cas started his hunt for souls.

He knew war changed people. Even if he didn't know a lot of Vets, he saw what the war on the things that went bump on the night did to hunters. He saw it in strangers and in his father and his brother, and most of all, in his reflection. But Cas was going above and beyond.

The angel had so much power now that he was drunk on it. Power hungry. Convinced he was a god. The God. He had gained powers that Dean didn't think he could comprehend, not even after seeing everything Cas could do as an angel. It was… mind-boggling.

Dean had heard a quote once, something about absolute power corrupting absolutely. He hadn't really understood it at the time, but he did now. Because the purity of Cas had been corrupted, and the man Dean had fallen in love with, the being, wasn't who was 'protecting' them now. Cas had lost himself, and so had Dean. And he didn't know how to get him back.

FINIS

2016 10M WotD Master Post (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, /10M-WotD-2016).

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